The Lincoln Hunters

By the standards of 1958, when it was first published, this must have been an above-average minor novel. By now, the writing style and the social attitudes are a little dated, but not too badly, and it remains an agreeable minor novel, though probably not above average by today's standards.Wilson Tucker was always a bit of an oddball, writing fiction with a distinctive personal flavour, and here he gives us a personal vision of time travel into the past. (He dealt with time travel into the future in [b:The Year of the Quiet Sun 973772 The Year of the Quiet Sun Wilson Tucker https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1304974865l/973772.SY75.jpg 831015]).In the story, Benjamin Steward leads a small team of people on a mission from 2578 AD to 1856 AD, to get a recording of Lincoln's Lost Speech. This seems a straightforward and relatively easy mission, but various human errors combine to create difficulties.Characterization is quite good, especially for 1958: the characters are all individuals with distinct non-standard personalities, except perhaps for the only female character, who is probably not entirely standard, but remains rather enigmatic.This is a book I don't want to reread often, but I can enjoy rereading it occasionally, which makes it a typical three-star book.The ending is not simply happy or unhappy, but a mixture of the two. Happiness with some regrets, I suppose. Tucker's fiction usually seems to have a trace of melancholy about it, although perhaps only a trace.